Greenfield Belser has been a Finn Partners company for almost two years. This year we are adopting the new Finn brand style we created for the firm that is on the second spread of our book. That’s exciting for all of us here at Finn, but that’s hardly all that has been going on this past year. Really, it is impossible to say we love the work we did for one client more than another, but our goal is always to show you a balanced portfolio—across sectors with firms of varying sizes located all around the country. Read more here.

AASHTO

building for the future

American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) paves the way for a new brand

AASHTO’s members are responsible for building America’s roads and bridges. They care deeply about both their fiduciary responsibilities and the quality of the work they supervise. AASHTO’s project management software is, amazingly, the result of collaboration among all the members. They volunteer on committees to design software for states, counties and cities. (If each agency were to try to design and develop the software themselves, it would cost a fortune!) Yet even their own members did not realize the breadth, power and capabilities of the suite of software tools.

The core of the problem was the disparate legacy names, labels and identities of the software and its secondary- and tertiary-level components. We’ve done plenty of logo and software design assignments in the past, including our own Point & Clique software packaging, but this was a doozy. So we stumbled a bit before we found the right solution. Fortunately, we had an understanding client who had confidence we could solve this. The result is one of the most creative and appealing solutions we’ve developed for a very tough design problem—but you be the judge.

Building the suite of sales tools—brochures, website, PowerPoint, fact sheets, etc.—followed closely on the heels of the final design of the icons. Simplifying the messaging is, of course, the key to great branding. The smart way to sell a product or service is to buy “permission” for additional buyer engagement by focusing on primary messages and then layering other messages close behind. But never everything all at once!